We enjoyed our annual, family trip to Marineland yesterday and are sold on waiting until the cooler weather sets in to visit. Sure friends of my daughter told her it was a low-budget Sea World but having never visited Sea World we’ll assume it must be pretty spectacular to begin to touch our line-up free day. Also, my kids have never understood (nor asked) what a budget is so they might think something that’s low budget could be pertaining to sea level.
Our first adventure was wandering into the Men’s room accidentally. People do seem pretty forgiving when they see a Mom with a stroller filled with a Family Sized box of Corn Pops cereal cowering from behind a blanket to feed the bears (fooled me once Marineland) and two older girls lying on the floor checking not just for shoes to identify stall occupancy but getting their heads right under to be sure in no uncertain terms, there is someone hovering over a toilet bowl.
I noticed the urinals which weren’t quite as shocking as the absence of a change table. Is this just a Marineland thing or is this a much larger, societal issue? Dads don’t change diapers? I mean, I know that’s the case in our family but surely we’re the anomaly.
The girls ran to their favourite, “Gut-Twisting-Spinny-Ride” with Greg by their sides. Dad has agreed to be “all time ride guy” which is a fair trade as I have been nominated for (but attempted to remove myself from the ballot) for “all time bathroom duty.” Today unfortunately, he was retaining some water and was unable to lower the lever on the ride. He was dejected and ejected leaving my daughter waving to me to hop on and take his place. The problem is I can’t even watch the ride on the commercial (or hear it on the radio) without becoming severely nauseous and rocking my knees into my chest on the floor with a warm compress on my forehead until just the right amount of ice cream has brought me back to my happy place. “Come on over Mom” she waved, like it was no big deal.
I agreed to get on the ride knowing she’s five and at thirty-six, I really should be a little braver than a five year old. I wasn’t. She giggled, I closed my eyes and tried to hum something to keep my mind on anything other than this washing machine spinning me around, jutting way off to the side and then quickly yanking us back while our stomachs tried to keep up. (hmmm“Who do you think you are? Running round leaving scars, Collecting your jar of hearts..hmmm.) I threatened to barf on my five year old more than once. Yep. I guess I thought if I warned her it would be better than the horrible surprise that was about to warm her pants. I breathed deeply and the ride was over. When we wobbled to the exit, she high-fived her Dad and big sister while the baby cheered and eight year old Hanna said, “Come on Mom, it’s my turn.”
No.
I can’t get back on this ride. I stumbled over to the back of the stroller and like a racoon, started tearing into the dry Corn Pops (bear food) thinking I would revert to my trick of eating to alleviate the nausea when I was pregnant. Corn Pops were never my go-to nausea fix but they were handy and how many Corn Pops can a bear eat in a season? I suspect there’s a stat on this somewhere but it must be in the bajillions.
I got back on for the second round but not before the friendly gentleman “Sucky Spinny Ride” handler made a few jokes about how green I looked the first time and even admitted, “This really is a terrible ride.” Ah-ha! So you admit it?! But that didn’t help. I guess I was hoping he would have no choice but to shut the whole thing down and resign immediately after such an admission.
We had an over-priced lunch, were swarmed with bees who were swarmed by seagulls and the girls smiled from ear to ear the entire time.
When I asked them on the way home to tell us about their favourite moment I knew in my heart they would both remember their mother’s fear of spinny rides and admit their favourite moments both happened to be the time we spent together white knuckling around that ride, helping their Mom keep her barf bag open.
Hanna: Sky Screamer!
Ellie: Funny guy at the show!
Chloe: Dolphins!
